We all have those moments that grab our attention
Out of nowhere, you look up because something attracted your attention. It is interesting because it is very personal. Any animal sound or kid sound will make me look. I know for a fact that any car sounds will make my boys look, but they won’t make me look. They won’t even distract me with whatever I am doing at that moment. The noise has to be something of interest that I am willing to stop what I am doing. What is it that will grab your attention?
I noticed after being inside a lot with COVID and all; that going outside has opened my attention to noises. Maybe I should use the word sounds instead of noise, which has perhaps a gloomy feel. Going outside and being out and about has filled my bucket of gratitude a lot this summer. Coming out of a Canadian winter, summer is the best present of the year anyway; but this year it is extra special. We didn’t have the stress of going away or feeling the pressure of traveling. We stayed home. It was a given. After some debating about it, I decided to see it as a gift. We had no stress packing, no quickly finishing that last thing. The plan was to explore our “back yard” – I mean our city and surrounding area. Camping, playing in the water, bringing a picnic or anything else we felt like doing – most definitely enjoying warm weather days.
Sitting in parks or being on a hiking trail helped me look at what is all around me. It started with the realization that we live in a fantastic place. There is so much around me. Of course, many of my friends were doing the same thing; we start talking about where to go and what was a great place to visit. Although I share many interests with my friends, I noticed that I loved going to the same places as my friends, but for different reasons.
It made it so much more fun – to lay in the grass and to share our interests and why we loved some particular place. While doing that, I noticed that the sounds around us distract us at the same time. But the distraction was different for everyone as the sound activates an interest in us personally. You know that feeling, you’re chatting with friends and they glance up to look at something. You are wondering what, as you didn’t notice anything.
You probably can guess that my sounds are the ones of animals – birds in the sky or trees, dogs enthusiastically barking to their humans, even fish that jump up from the water. It grabs my attention and I have to look at what they are doing. If I can’t see what the sounds and activities mean, I have to stand up and find out what it is. I know that it is an invitation to something joyful. It is an intuitive feeling and it makes me look. Sometimes it is a bit embarrassing as I can stare a bit. Nowadays, I do pay attention to not do that.
For myself, it means wanting to know the story. Was the dog in the car a long time and is now finally able to run? Is the bird calling his friends that he has found a cool place to hang out with lots of fantastic food to eat? Even with the fish jumping, I wonder if they want to know what the noise is all about and see what is happening onshore. It is a very personal translation of what is happening around us. It tells us what it is we are interested in on our heart level.
Sometimes we are bored and not sure what we should do. We end up watching Netflix or YouTube; it kind of numbs our intuitions a little bit. We can do a whole library of things and we are invited to by our surroundings. The sounds ask us to take inspired action to go and do something or be somewhere. It gives us options not to be bored or to be bored with a good reason. Our environment is open for ideas and if we don’t have any creative thoughts, it is happy to invite us.
Sit outside and see what it is that grabs your attention. I would love to hear all about it in the comments below.